


The Glades Job

by lunaterium



Series: The Vigilante Support Club [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Competence Kink, F/M, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, References to Leverage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-03-20 04:25:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3636654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaterium/pseuds/lunaterium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when you put a Good Man, a Hacker, two Retrieval Specialists and a Con Man together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Set-Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Abbie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/gifts).



**January 5, 2011**

**John**

There was a time when John Diggle could have stood in the light, and say with complete honesty that he was a good man. But that time was before Andy got shot in the middle of the street, before he and Lyla started to fight more than they loved each other, before everything went to utter shit. He stared into the bottom of the glass of vodka, the taste of it coating his tongue fuzzy.

“Mr. Diggle.  You are a hard man to find,” an oily voice said from the entrance of the bar. He turned and winced in the blinding light from the open door.  It caused the speaker to look as if he were a shadow, an ominous being sent to cast judgment on him. Then the door closed and the man was revealed.

“Not interested,” John said, and if his voice was slurring a bit, he was past the point of caring.  Malcolm Merlyn smiled the smile of a man who always got what he wanted.

“You haven’t heard what I was going to say.”

“Still not interested.”

“Even if it helped you get what you deserve?” And there was a knowing lilt to Merlyn’s voice, as if he was in on a secret that he shouldn’t have known about. 

“I don’t think I deserve anything,” John said. It was not bitterly said, but there was a sadness to it that he did not even bother trying to hide.

“I think you deserve your life back. I think that you deserve loyalty. I think that ARGUS did you a disservice by not supporting you.  I think that you want to take them down, hurt them like they hurt you.   I think Andy deserves that much, don’t you?” John didn’t startle easily, but when his brother’s name came out of that man’s lips, the glass shattered in his grasp.  The vodka stung the cuts he had created.

“You do not get to talk about him,” he growled. He heard Lyla’s laugh, the sound grating against the back of his skull.

Merlyn ignored him.  “Don’t you want to get revenge on ARGUS,” he pressed. “ To take them down a notch?”

“It doesn’t matter if I want to or not,” John said. “They can’t be taken down.”

“What if I said they could be?”

He looked at the suit-clad man warily. “I’m not exactly in the business to do that sort of thing.”

“Yes,” Merlyn said affably.  “We all know about your white knight persona; it’s what made you the best.  I promise that this is all onboard.”

He smiled, the shape of it warring with the deadness in his eyes. 

There had been a time when John had listened to his gut (which at this point was screaming to not listen to Merlyn’s voice), but that time was gone.  It had been obliterated with a shot to Andy’s head.

“What is the job?” he asked, giving an inch.

Merlyn took it for a mile.  “My R&D department has been on the brink of creating a machine that helps with ocean cleanup for a while now.” He grabbed a blueprint from his brief case (it was a magic trick, John thought, he hadn’t seen a brief case in the man’s hands earlier) and laid it on the bar’s surface. “The machine helps to safely break down large debris so that it can be more easily removed.”

“I’m not quite sure how this is going to hurt ARGUS,” John interrupted.

“To put it in layman’s terms, the machine can cause earthquakes.  That’s how it breaks down the debris; it sends vibrations through the object and causes it to disintegrate. Last week, a rival company of mine, UNIDAC Industries, stole the blueprints for the machine. Everything, even the backups of the backups.”

“UNIDAC, that’s a shell company for ARGUS,” John murmured.

“Yes.  And while we weren’t able to make the Markov device- that’s it’s name- viable, with ARGUS’ power behind it, it is very possible that it’s been created,” Merlyn intoned gravely.

“And that would be very bad,” John said.

“Very bad indeed,” he agreed.

They stared at each other. 

“I would need a team, and monetary compensation.”

Merlyn smiled. “Of course.  Your bank account has already received two million. The other half will be deposited once the job has been complete.”

Another file appeared in his hand, and Merlyn handed this one to him.  “These are the people. You have a meeting with them tomorrow morning.”

John gave the contents a cursory glance. “You got the Canary and the Hood? I thought they didn’t work well together.”

“Well, I paid them enough to play nice.”

“And who the hell is Happy?  I’ve never heard of them, and I’ve heard of everyone who’s in the business.”

“She’s new, but brilliant,” Merlyn bragged. “She won’t let you down.”

“Seems like you have it all figured out.” He snapped the folder shut.  “But what if I had said no?”

Malcolm Merlyn smiled again, but this one was devoid of any semblance of niceties.  “You’ll find, Mr. Diggle, that I always get my way.”

\---

**January 6, 2011**

**Felicity**

Felicity Smoak sat in a booth in Big Belly Burger, her purse in her lap.  And while she seemed as if she didn’t have a care in the world except for eating a burger and slurping down a shake, if one knew what to look for, one would see that she was extremely nervous.  She had worn her panda flats, her knee jiggled under the table and she was biting the straw into smaller pieces.  But perhaps the most telling thing of all was the fact that she kept one hand in her lap, in her purse, curled around the gun that she had recently bought.

It was the light time of the day, between the breakfast and lunch rush hours, so Felicity Smoak was pretty much alone. A handsome dark skinned man sat in the corner of the restaurant, his arms flexing in the light as he turned the pages of a newspaper.  She took a moment or two to admire his physique before turning back to making sure that her monologue stayed internal.

 _What are you doing here,_ she fretted. 

When Mr. Merlyn had come down to her floor, she had thought that he was going to ask for help with his computer or to commend her on fixing that virus that had almost caused widespread panic.

Instead, he had come to her with a file of all her misdeeds- _he even knew about that time in London with those guys I paid to pretend to be Jedis-_ and a threat to expose it so that she would never work again. 

She had promised herself after Coop that she was going to go straight (except for the whole Iceland paying her mom’s rent thing, but still.  _Just one last one_ , she had thought.  And then she would be on the straight and narrow path for good.

He had produced another file- _wow,_ she had thought, _he really likes files_. It contained only one paper containing 10 words and a meeting time.

She looked at the paper again, though she had memorized it's contents.

Mr. Diggle.

Black Canary.

The Hood.

Happy.

Big Belly Burger. 10:30 AM.

She had assumed that the first four items on the page were the people she was working with, and the last one the place where the prep meeting was going to happen.  

 _But I’m out of practice and I used to only work alone,_ she reminded herself.

The bell above the door chimed, and two of the most beautiful people she’d ever seen walked in.  Both were blonde in a way that made Felicity touch her dyed hair with envy; they exuded an air of mystery and intrigue with the slightest touch of danger.  The man had his hair buzzed short, and he wore the white Henley and jeans _well.  Like really well._ And the woman dressed like she was going for sweetness but still ended up looking like a badass with a cropped tank and a paisley patterned circle skirt. 

Felicity observed them while she sucked down her milkshake; they spoke quietly before the woman went to order and the man- _holy fuck he’s coming over here!_

She reared back, her hand tightening on her gun. Some milkshake splattered on the table as she still had the straw clenched tightly between her teeth.

“Hi,” he said, thrusting out his hand. “I’m Oliver.”  He tried smiling but it didn’t look right on his face. It was like he was trying to hard to smile but he hadn’t done it in a while.

She spit out the straw, but it fell straight down. _Oh god Felicity, way to go_.

“Hi Felicity,” he said, his smile more natural now. She looked at him and realized that she had spoken out loud.

“Oh crap, yeah hi,” she replied as she shook his hand vigorously.  “I’m sorry my brain to mouth filter is non-existent, and it’s more out of existence when in the presence of beautiful people.  Not that I’m calling you beautiful, even though you are.  Your girlfriend is too!”  She noticed that she still had his hand in her grip so she stopped talking and let go of his hand, her face blushing.

“Oh, I’m not his girlfriend,” a light voice said as the woman stepped into view.  “Hell no,” she wrinkled her nose at that.  “And I’m guessing you’re Happy?”

 _She was_ Happy?Well it made sense with her name, she figured.

“Felicity,” Oliver corrected.

All of the color drained out of her face as she realized what this meant. “Oh fuck, you’re part of this aren't you.”

"Black Canary and the Hood," the Hood confirmed.  Felicity gaped at him.

“You can call me Sara,” Black Canary smiled as she sat next down to Felicity, forcing her deeper into the booth.

She leaned in closer until her mouth was nearly on Felicity’s ear. “Also, do you really like me or is that a gun in your lap?”

Felicity jumped away, both of her hands landing on the table.  Oliver stared from the other side of the booth, his smile gone and a hard look on his face.

“That wasn’t nice Sara,” he said tersely.

“Suck it Ollie,” she said rolling her eyes. “I was just having fun, right ‘Lis?”

“First of all,” Felicity said as she scooted away from Sara.  “My name is Felicity, not Fee-fee, not Lissy and definitely not ‘Lis.  And second: no.  I am not having fun right now.”

“I don’t like guns,” Oliver said.

“Ok big guy, well it makes me feel better,” she snapped.  “I could care less what you feel right now.”

“And this is why I was hired,” a low voice said. “To make sure all you children play nice.”

In her distraction, she hadn’t noticed the man in the corner get up.  Up close, his muscles were bigger than she had thought. 

Oliver cracked a smile.  “Did I say that out loud?” she asked.

“Yes,” the man intoned, his eyes crinkling.

“John Diggle,” Sara drawled.  “Never thought I’d see you on this side of the law.”

 “Let’s worry less about me and more about the job,” Mr. Diggle replied gruffly. “Canary, Hood, Happy-" Felicity blinked at that. She still wasn't used to the moniker.  "-Mr. Merlyn’s stockholder meeting is at the beginning of next week, so we need to do it soon.”

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but what exactly are we doing?” Felicity interrupted.

“A company called ARGUS stole something that Mr. Merlyn wants back,” he said.

“ARGUS?” Oliver asked, tensing up. Felicity tensed up as well.

“Yup, and we’re doing it tonight.”

“Excuse me,” Felicity said, raising her hand, feeling foolish after.  “I don’t know about you all, but I’m literally just from Mr. Merlyn’s IT Department. I’m not some kind of thief or whatever you guys do. I'm on my freaking lunch break right now!”

“Felicity Meghan Smoak-"

"How do you know my name?" She interrupted.

"It's on that name badge of yours," he said before continuing.  "You got both of your bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MIT, graduated Summa Cum Laude, are from Vegas,  used to count cards in the casinos and one of only three people to successfully hack into ARGUS’ system.” Felicity’s blood grew cold as Diggle listed the things she had done.

“Her?  She’s one of the three?” Sara’s asked.

“Could you sound more disbelieving?” Felicity snapped back.  Her eyes widened. “Oh fuck, please do not kill me.”

“I like you even more now,” Sara smiled. Felicity smiled back tentatively.

“I’m assuming you have a plan,” Oliver interrupted. “If we’re doing it tonight.”

“Yes I do,” Diggle confirmed. His mouth turned up into a slow smile that sent a shiver down Felicity's back. 


	2. The Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waiting on rooftops, kicking ass and hairspraying your way through laser grids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been forever, but it's back! Hopefully it won't be five months again before I update. Thanks to Megan, Claire, Kay and Jaz for helping me out with this chapter! I hope it's okay.

**January 6, 2011- later that night**

**Sara**

Back when she was part of the League, she learned how to work with a team.  It seems, Sara thought, that she and John Diggle were the only two who knew how to on this job.   She’d started feeling that when Oliver had lost the coin toss at lunch; they both hated to lose.  Sara almost offered to switch with him, but she was small enough to admit to herself that she enjoyed seeing him angry-eat his Big Belly Burger.  It almost made up for that time in Paris.

The dossier on Felicity had also caused Sara worry. Felicity had done most of her jobs in her late teens and early twenties; she was nearly four years out of her game.   It had also only taken half an hour to realize that Felicity was a talker, babbling even more when she was nervous.

There was a high possibility that Oliver or Felicity would end up dead by the other’s hands before the end of the job. And possibly, Sara thought, that she would end up killing them both and take the reward money for herself if they continued to annoy her. So perhaps she wasn’t that great at teams either.

\---

The first part of Diggle’s plan had included hiding on the roof of the building across from UNIDAC until after dark, and while _she_ knew the art of staying quiet and focusing on the mission, it seemed as if Oliver took to that role with ferocity.  For the first two hours, he had only focused on coiling and recoiling his wires, making sure that he had the correct measurements for what he needed.

Felicity, on the other hand, was a study in nervousness.  She had already paced around the entire ceiling, tore apart whatever device she was supposed to give to Oliver, put it back together, tried to do yoga, failed to do yoga, changed her black turtleneck for a simple black shirt instead, ate all of the snacks she had brought and was finally laying down below where Sara was doing curl-ups on the antenna tower. And, Sara marveled, she had done so without ever seemingly closing her mouth.

“Can we go over the plan one more time?” Felicity asked, and Oliver sighed the sigh of one who had suffered greatly.  Which he had, from what Sara knew, but she had thought he’d be able to handle one girl’s incessant talking.  He was probably an only child, she thought.  “I just, I’m rusty you know? I haven’t run an operation in years.”

“Just worry about your equipment working okay? That’s all you need to worry about,” he whisper-growled.   Sara paused, her chin just above the bar.  Those were the first words that he had spoken since they had gotten to the roof.  Felicity paused, the first time she had all night.

“It works fine, thank you very much,” she tersely replied.  “All my tech does.”

Oliver grunted in reply, and sat cross-legged and put his hands on his knees.  Sara rolled her eyes and dropped down, her arms aching in a good way.  She sat across from Felicity, whose face was marred by a frown.

“Don’t worry about him,” she said.  “He’s just grumpy that he lost the coin toss and has to go in first.”  Oliver’s shoulders tensed, but he still focused on his meditation.

“I’m just nervous, you know,” Felicity said for what seemed the millionth time.  “If this doesn’t go well, I’m going to lose my job.” Sara felt a pang of envy at that, that she had something to go back to after all this was done.  She thought of Laurel and Nyssa, and even Mom and Dad, but only for just a moment.

She knew her rabbit holes, and now was not the time to jump down them.

“I hate to agree with Oliver, but just make sure you have all your stuff,” she said in what she hoped was a comforting manner.  “And make sure that your ski mask has a hole for your mouth.  The last thing you want is that weird feeling you get when you have a wet cloth over your mouth.”

Felicity smiled at that. “Well, if Oliver puts the thingamajig in the right port, we shouldn’t need to use masks.”

“Thingamajig? Is that the technical term for it?” Sara asked.

“I can’t remember the name of the top of my head right now,” Felicity confessed.  “I’m too busy trying not to throw up.”

“That’s reassuring,” Oliver muttered, his eyes still closed.

“It’ll work, that’s all you need to know,” Felicity shot over her shoulder.  “Just make sure to attach it to the HDMI port, okay?”

He didn’t respond.

“We have an hour before the timer starts.  Make sure that you’re ready, and we’ll be fine,” Sara said as she reached for her brief case.

“Is that a blonde wig?” Felicity asked as Sara pulled out her favorite piece of her outfit.

“Yes,” she said shortly.

“…But you’re blonde already,” Felicity said, and any goodwill she had towards the other girl soured.

“I know.”

The hacker shrank back from Sara’s glare, and nodded vigorously.  “Okay, I guess that makes sense,” she said in a way that belied that it didn’t make sense to her at all.

Sara remained silent, focused instead on pinning her hair up.  She almost wished that she had Oliver’s job at that moment.  Almost.

\--

**Oliver**

“You’re sure that these won’t all of a sudden fry up in our ears and burn us?” Oliver asked as he held the little comm in his palm, remembering a job for ARGUS in Saudi Arabia.     

“No, they won’t.  I made them, so they’re probably better than what’s on the market today.  You don’t even have to talk at a normal sound level, they hear whispers just as well, and have a longer range than anything commercial,” Felicity said crossly.  He hooked the top of it over his ear and slipped it in gingerly.

“It's nearly eleven; comms are active now,” Sara said firmly, eyes on her watch.  Oliver glowered at her take-charge attitude.  He was the one who had worked for ARGUS in the past; hell, even Felicity probably knew ARGUS more than Sara did.  But there was no more time to ponder this, as John Diggle’s voice came on in his ear.

“You’re all ready?” the gruff man asked.

Felicity nodded vigorously, her blonde ponytail bouncing.  “Yes,” Oliver said, watching as the hacker blushed, having come to the realization that Diggle could not see her.

“I just realized,” Felicity said slowly, “that your plan didn’t take into consideration how we were going to get into the building.  All you said was Ol-the Hood was going to take care of it.”

“It was on a need to know basis,” Diggle said.  “You didn’t need to know until now.”

“And why is that exactly?” she demanded.

“Because you probably wouldn’t have agreed to it.”

“What do you mea-“ she stopped as she realized what he meant.  “Oh _fuck.”_

Oliver had already taken out his crossbow and nocked the wired arrow.  His harness was on under his jacket.  He closed one eye, and let the arrow loose.  The hook sprang free from the head as the wire whistled against his skin.  He smiled smugly as the hook wrapped around a part of the antenna tower.  He tugged hard on the wire and was satisfied when it held.

 _Diggle knew what he was doing,_ he had to admit, even if only to himself.  The building he had chosen was the closest to UNIDAC and several stories higher.  Below them was an alley that was fenced in on both sides, so there would be no witnesses underneath.  He walked the wire back and wrapped it around the other antenna tower.

“So you all knew about this?” Felicity asked frantically.  He turned around to see that Sara had put her jacket in her backpack, her harness revealed over her tank top.

“I suspected,” Sara said easily.  “Besides, I’m always prepared to jump off a building.”

Oliver knew that for a fact; he remembered Paris…and Budapest…and Cape Town too, although he still wasn’t sure how she had worn a harness under her red dress.

“Hood, you didn’t give her the harness,” Diggle said disbelievingly, and Oliver admired at how he could hear the frown in his voice.

“You said it yourself, she didn’t need to know before now.  If I gave it to her earlier, she would have figured it out in an instant,” he retorted as he threw the harness over to Felicity.  Her hands shook as she shrugged off her backpack to put it on.

“This is precisely why I work alone,” she said, glaring at him.  “So this-“ she patted the vest hard. “-Doesn’t happen.”

“Not that hearing you guys talk isn’t the highlight of my night, but we’re on a timetable here,” Sara said as she helped Felicity with the straps.

“Black Canary is right; Happy, are you ready?” Diggle asked.  “We have thirteen minutes and change to get you all in.”

He attached his harness to the wire and motioned to Felicity to come closer.  She was hesitant, looking over the edge of the building with wide eyes.  He attached his harness to hers, and wrapped an arm around her.

“Hold onto me tight,” he said.

“I imagined you saying that under different circumstances,” she said offhandedly as she wrapped her arms around his neck.  After hearing her babble for the past three hours, he knew she probably hadn’t meant to say that out loud.  He still felt uncomfortable, and probably knew that it reflected in his face.

She stiffened in his arms, and was quick to add- “Very platonic circumstances of course.  I mean, I just met you-“

“Twelve minutes and fifty-five seconds,” Diggle warned them.

“Lift up your legs,” Oliver ordered, and was happy that he didn’t have to be more specific, because she bent her knees behind her rather than wrapping them around his waist. He immediately felt the weight of her sag against him, and he was quick to adjust his arm so that she wasn’t killing his neck. “And don’t look down,” he said as he stepped off the building.

There was only about two hundred feet between the buildings, but his stomach still leapt up to his throat the entire time he was over nothing but air.  Felicity had a death grip on him, her knees knocking against his.

They got to the other side with ease. Oliver unclipped himself from the wire, and they dropped two feet.  Felicity still held onto him, even as he unwrapped his arm from around her waist.

“You can let go now, “ he said evenly. “I need to set up my rig.”

“It’s over?” she asked in a shaky voice as she unfurled her legs and let go of his neck.  She stumbled backwards when she landed on his feet, and Oliver winced as she stepped hard on his left foot.

Sara’s laughter kept him from answering, and they both looked to see Sara unclip herself as soon as she was over the roof.  She rolled into a tumble and popped upright in front of them, her eyes bright, her wig slightly askew and her briefcase in hand.

“Showoff,” Oliver muttered, and she grinned harder at that.  He jumped up and pressed a button on the side of the hook.  The cable- which had had gunpowder inside- disintegrated, falling over the alley.  He ignored the gasp of surprise from Felicity and the appreciative murmur from Sara.

 “You should be the one doing this,” he muttered to Sara as he started to put together and attach his pulley system to the lip of the roof.

“You’re just bitter you lost the coin toss.  Now hurry up.”

“I had to make a new rig after you stole mine last time,” he grumbled.

“I hope this one is better, because that last one was shit,” she volleyed back.

He ignored that, and grabbed his other cable from his backpack.  He had eleven minutes to get inside and he needed to concentrate.

“You almost done,” Diggle asked after nearly three minutes of dead time.

“Just about,” he grunted as he pushed the last piece into place.  He tugged the black beanie onto his head and clipped himself to the wire before jogging backwards a couple meters.  “Done.”

“On my mark,” Diggle recited.  “Five, four, three, two-“

“One,” Oliver finished as he took a running leap over the edge of the roof.

\--

**Felicity**

Felicity Smoak was a pacer. She paced when she was thinking, she paced when she was nervous, she paced when she was bored.  At the moment she was all three, and she paced in circles around the antenna tower, barely listening to Mr. Diggle and Oliver as the former directed the latter on how to get to where he needed to go.

Sara stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.  “Stop pacing,” the other woman ordered.  “It makes me twitchy.”

Felicity bit her lip and didn’t say anything.  She went to shrug off the other’s hand, but Sara’s grip only tightened.

“Let go,” Felicity said fiercely, and Sara did, her mouth curving into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“You’re not paying attention when you pace,” Sara said. “Spade and the Hood have been calling your name for the last thirty seconds.”

“Shit, sorry,” she said.  “I’m just-“

“-nervous,” Sara finished for her.  “We all know.  But you can’t be right now because the Hood needs to know what he needs to attach the thingamajig into.”

“It’s called a transformer,” Felicity said, finally recalling the name.  “And he needs to put it in the HDMI port.  Which I’m pretty sure I told him earlier.”

She heard Diggle _-Spade-_ laugh. She still didn’t understand Oliver’s reasoning behind the man’s code name; but then again, she had been all for _The Arms_ as his pseudonym.

“I’m in,” Oliver’s voice sounded in her ear. “All of the feeds are in a loop, and only Spade and I can see the real thing.  You should have a clear path to the server room.”

“Don’t take the elevators, just to be safe,” Diggle added.

“Got it,” Sara said as she and Felicity jogged to the door to the stairwell.  “It’s on floor forty-seven right?”

“Affirmative,” Diggle intoned. “You have thirty six minutes to get the data and get out the same way you came in.”  

“Affirmative,” Felicity repeated.  “Sounds so official.”  The stairwell was well lit, which surprised her.  She began to go down the stairs but after one flight, noticed that Sara wasn’t behind her.

A whistling sound filled the air as a rope fell past her and she looked up to see Sara attaching a rope to a rail.

“Nonononono,” Felicity said frantically.

“It’s faster,” Sara said in a reasonable tone as she walked down the stairs to her, which Felicity thought was unfair because she was asking something so unreasonable of her.  “Besides, we don’t know if they‘ve made a prototype of the Markov, so we need to allow time for that.”

“Fine,” she said.  Sara smiled as she hooked Felicity onto the rope as well.

“Besides,” Sara said.  “We only have thirteen floors to go.” With that she climbed over the stair’s railing, forcing Felicity to come with her or else be slammed into the rails.   Felicity held onto the railing behind her with a grip that surprised even her.

“We’ll jump on three,” Sara said. “But you have to let go for this to work- unless you want to rip your fingers off.  And we kind of need your fingers for the next part, Happy.”  The use of her code name sharpened Felicity’s focus.

“I know,” Felicity said, taking a deep breath.  She forced herself to let go of the railing.

“Here,” Sara offered her hand.  “You can hold onto me if you’re scared.”

Felicity grasped it like a lifeline.

“Three,” Sara said, right before Felicity felt a yanking feeling in her left arm and the ground disappear below her.

\--

**John**

Black Canary’s whoop and Happy’s squeak of fear were sharp in his ear, and John could only imagine what the Hood was feeling.  The guy was probably sweltering in the server closet he was in, and that sound probably would not have helped.

Happy stuttered a protest. “Yo-yo-you s-said we were g-gonna go on t-t-three.”

“We did, didn’t we? I just didn’t say the other numbers,” Black Canary said.

“Excuse me sir,” John looked up to see a waitress holding a pot of coffee.  “Would you like a refill?”

He smiled and said, “Yes thank you.”  He made sure that he angled the computer away from her, just in case.  He had picked the booth in the far corner of the 24-hour diner, and sat in the blind spot of the security camera.  He could see all entry and exit points from where he sat.  

“Is that an RPG?” The waitress asked as she poured the coffee.  John tried to think of what could mean. “My brother acted like that whenever he played in public.”

“RPG is a role-playing game you play online,” Happy informed him.

“Oh,” Diggle blinked, and then assumed the role of a person caught doing something that he wasn’t supposed to.  “Yeah, I’m playing-”

“World of Warcraft,” Happy supplied.  

He relayed that, and the waitress smiled at him.  “My brother used to love that one,” she said, her mouth turning down a bit.  “Let me know if you need anything else,” she paused.

“John,” he supplied after a beat.

“Let me know if you need anything else, John.”  She walked away, going to the boisterous table in the center of the room.  

“She sounds nice,” the Hood said, an almost teasing lilt in his voice. John ignored him; they had to work a job together- they weren’t friends.  

“Canary, Happy, what’s your status?”

“Aw, he doesn’t want to be friends,” the Hood sneered.  John ignored that as well.

“We’re en route to the server room,” Black Canary said.  “Two minutes out.”

“Copy that; thirty-three minutes until the guards do their nightly walk-through.  Make sure you’re gone before that.”

“Got it,” Happy murmured back.

There wasn’t anyone talking on the comms, but John could hear the two women walking briskly to their destination, the echo-iness of the Hood breathing in the closet.  Felicity Smoak- _Happy_ , he corrected himself- certainly knew what she was doing.

"We're here," Happy said.

“You’re sure you know what to do?” Black Canary asked.

“It looks like they’ve got a FireEye system in place,” Happy said, and the sound of her fiddling with something filled his ear.  “Fun fact, I almost went to work for them, but Mer-my current job offered me higher starting pay and better dental.”  She whistled in admiration.  “They’ve got a ten digit code on the door that I’m 95% sure changes and randomizes every fifteen minutes.” His watch blinked 11:20 PM.  A corresponding chime sounded in his ear.  “Actually, make that ten minutes,” Happy corrected herself.

“Sounds fancy,” the Hood said.  

“It is,” Happy said.  “I’d kill for one of these.”

“Can you get past it though?” John asked.  

Happy snorted.  “Of course; give me ‘round ten minutes.  These are beauts, but my stuff is Miss Universe grade-level.”

Something else clinked, and then- “Oops, you can’t see me, but I’m fist-pumping right now,” Happy said- well, happily.

“So now we wait,” Black Canary.  “Ten minutes?”

“Ten minutes.”  

“So since we’re gonna be here for ten minutes, what is it that you do?” Happy asked after thirty three seconds of silence.  “I mean, Spade is the mastermind, everyone knows that the Hood is a thief, but you- I may have been out of this business for a bit, but I still kept tabs. And I’ve never heard of you.”

If tension was a thing that could be heard, it filled John’s ear.

“Well I’ve never heard of you either,” Black Canary deflected.  “Other than the ghost story of the girl who managed to hack into ARGUS and not get caught.  Besides, does it matter?”

“You’re a mystery,” Happy said.  “I hate mysteries. They bug me. They need to be solved.”

Black Canary didn’t answer and the comms were silent again.

John took another sip of his coffee as he glanced over the camera feeds on his computer.  

“Hood,” he started.  “Are all the guards in the operation center?”

“I think so, why?” the Hood asked.

“Because there’s eight names on the roster, but there’s only four people in the room.”

“How did you-?”

“Count the haircuts, Hood,” he said.  The other man mumbled something quickly.

“What was that?”

“He said ‘I wouldn’t have caught that’,” Black Canary helpfully said.

An odd sound filled his ear, and then-

“Did you just growl?” Happy asked disbelievingly.

“...No,” the Hood sullenly said.

“Dude that was such a growl- and I should know,” Happy said.  “Not that I know how you growl, just that these comms work by detecting the vibrations in your mouth. I mean, your um your jaw musc-”

“Stop talking,” Black Canary ordered.

“Thank you,” the other woman muttered gratefully.

“I’m checking the feeds and we have a problem,” the Hood said.

“Talk to me Hood,” John said.  “Tell me what’s going on.”

“They’re doing their walkabouts early, and they’re a floor above you right now,” the Hood replied.  “You’ve got maybe three minutes until they’re at your doorstep.”

John straightened his shoulders and put down his coffee mug.  “How much time do you still need Happy?”

“I need four,” her voice was strained.  

“Shit,” Black Canary said.

“Why the hell are they doing their rounds early?” the Hood demanded.  “I thought you had it all figured out.”

“NBA Slam Dunk Contest,” John squinted at the videos on his screen.  “Bottom left, Hood- you can see it’s on the tv there.”

The Hood let out a series of curses.  Happy wasn’t too happy either.  Only Black Canary kept quiet.

“They’re nearly there guys,” the Hood warned them.

“I need more time,” Happy cried out.  

“Calm down,” John ordered.  “Here’s what we’re going to do.  Oliver, make sure that they can’t communicate with the boys at the headquarters.”

“There’s a jammer component to the thing I gave you,” Happy said, panicked.  “Just push the red button, it’ll make sure they can’t talk.”

“Done.”

The sound of feedback rang sharp in his ear, and John winced.  The guards were closer to Happy and the Black Canary’s position than he thought.  

"They're at the end of the hall," the Hood warned.

“How much more time do you need?”

“It’s still trying to figure out the last three variables; maybe two minutes,” Happy replied.

John nodded.  “Okay, Canary- I want you to use Happy as bait and take out these guys.”

-

**Felicity**

Felicity whipped her head around to see Sara smile.

"Excuse me but did you just say that I'm bait?" Felicity asked incredulously.

"Copy that," Sara said as she walked away.

"Happy, stay in position," Mr. Diggle ordered.

Felicity glanced at the code breaker; two more digits left.  The plastic grew warm as her palms became more sweaty.  She could hear the footsteps coming closer.

Mr. Merlyn had threatened her job- and she loved her job, but she wasn't willing to die for it.

"Fuck it," she muttered as she scrambled to her feet, pulling down her ski mask just in case. She turned and looked for her closest exit, slinging her backpack over her shoulder.She left the code breaker hanging, just in case.

She'd barely gotten five feet when four men burst in, guns blazing.

"Hands up," one barked.

She raised them up slowly.

"Now put your hands behind your head and get on your knees,"another ordered.

"Slowly," the first one said.

Her eyes widened as she saw Sara behind them, a mop in hand.  Sara had put her mask on too, but it covered only half of her face.

“Okay, fine,” Felicity said, her voice high and tight.  “Just don’t shoot.”

In perhaps the most metal move she’d ever seen, Sara broke the mop in half over her leg.  

Before the two men closest to her could even turn at the sound, she had whacked both of them on the back of the neck; they crumpled easily.  Sara ducked down as the first man that had spoken to Felicity shot at her, tumbling over the body of one of the men she had just taken down. She landed on her knees and with the momentum of her roll, slid towards him, her arms splayed open wide. She accordion-boxed him in the knees with the two pieces of the mop; he fell forward and she head butted him in the stomach as she got to her feet.  She kept going and he crashed into the wall.  She lifted up  and Sara grabbed onto one of his legs, swinging him into the last remaining man. They both crashed into the opposite wall.  She dropped both pieces of the mop as she stalked over to them and just punched both of them in the face.

And if Felicity hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn't have believed that in the time it took her to drop to her knees and put her hands behind her head, Sara had taken out all four men.

"Holy shit," she breathed.

Sara turned to look at her and smirked. _"That's_ what I do."

Felicity would have basked more in the awesomeness that is Black Canary/Sara, had not her code-breaker beeped.

The door opened behind her with a puff of air.

“I have to... go get the stuff, can you-” Felicity started.

“I’ll take care of them, you just get the data that we came for,” Sara said.

“Seriously, good job! Okay I need to-” Sara raised an eyebrow at her.  “Shutting up now and going.”

She unhooked her code-breaker from the lock on her way in.  The room was cold as she walked in, the vents on the floor blowing cold air upwards.  She found the access point quickly, and grabbed her small laptop from her backpack to hook it up.

“I’m in; grabbing the files as we speak,” she said, typing furiously.

“Make sure to grab everything,” Mr. Diggle ordered.

“Of course I am,” she said, affronted that he would even ask.  “It’s the age of the geek, baby.”

She winced as an awkward silence ensued.

“Please forget that I ever said that,” she said.

“Boys are all tied up,” Sara said, her voice coming from nearby her as well as in her ear.  “You almost ready?”

“And...finished!” Felicity said, smiling widely.

“Drop the spike,” Mr. Diggle said.  Felicity plugged in a USB Stick and resisted the urge to rub her hands in evil glee.

“Is that a virus?” Sara asked.

“I gave them a lot of viruses; it’s gonna take ‘em out,” Felicity said gleefully.  She pumped her fist up in the air as she saw that her program had wiped them clean.  “Smoak, two; ARGUS, zip!”

\--

**Oliver**

Oliver cracked his neck.  Being in a cramped space was not how he’d imagined spending his time.  He had thought for sure that he was going to win the coin toss, damnit.

A beeping noise on his screen got his attention.  

“Hate to break up this party,” he said. “But those guys you took out? Looks like they reset all the alarms from your floor to the roof.”

“What does that mean?” Felicity asked.

“Means your way out just got a whole lot harder,” Diggle said.

“Diggle, do you have a back-up plan?” Sara asked before panic could erupt.  Oliver clenched his fists; if Diggle didn’t have a plan, he knew he could go back the same way he came in, Felicity and Sara be damned.  He wouldn’t be caught by ARGUS, not again.  

Diggle was silent for a moment.  “Black Canary,” and the emphasis was there, to censure Sara for using his real name.  Oliver grinned at that.  “I do.  All of you, head to the west elevator.  We’re going to the burn-scam.”

Oliver unclenched his hands and opened the door of his closet slowly, poised to take out anyone near him.  He didn’t hear anything so he stepped out, stretching this way and that.  Sara and Felicity would have been cramped in that space; Oliver had felt like he was in a fucking compactor.  He grabbed his crossbow from his bag and strapped his quiver to his thigh.

He crept silently along the hall, ready to shoot if necessary.  

“We’re in,” Felicity said.  “Heading up to you now, Hood.”

“Watch out for the lasers in the hallway near the elevators,” Sara added.  “Happy was able to disable them for our floor but she couldn’t do yours.”

“Wait, what?” Oliver hissed.  

“It’s a proximity thing,” Felicity added.

“Fine,” he grunted out. He reached the end of the hallway and paused.  He stashed his bow and quiver in his duffel bag.  He grabbed the hairspray can and then strapped the bag to his back before he turned the corner.

Contrary to popular belief, you couldn’t really have invisible laser beams- especially in an area with carpet, which this floor had- as long as you knew what to look for.  Air flowed through the vents, causing the dust particles to kick up in the air, thus coming into contact with the beams.  He could faintly see the lasers in the moving air; he smiled grimly as he saw that they were stationary- a small favor.  He sprayed liberally around the area around him with the hairspray; it only reached six feet in front of him before dissipating.  

One set of lasers, he’d noticed, were down low, around ankle length, the other about waist high. Each laser had been about two feet apart; the design of it was clear- make it easy to catch the people in the act; after all, most people would be the correct height to trigger the alarms.  

Oliver crept low, weaving his way through the lasers, spraying as he went so he could see where to move next.  

“Status report Hood,’ Diggle’s voice came in.

“Kind of busy,” he gritted out, ducking his head underneath a beam.  “I’ll be at the elevator in 30 seconds.”

“Got it,” Sara said. “We’re holding the elevator for you now.”

"And… turned off the lasers on your floor," Felicity said. “You’ve got a clear shot to us, but hurry.”

"Got it," Oliver responded. He ran into the elevator, sweat dripping from the exertion of having to go through those damn lasers.  

Felicity and Sara were already dressed; the former in the clothes she had been wearing at Big Belly Burger, the later in a smart gray pantsuit.  Sara still had that stupid wig on that she loved, and he rolled his eyes at that.

Oliver turned to face the back of the elevator as he took of his shirt, wiping away the sweat there.  He bent over to grab his own clothes, resisting the urge to cover up the scars he knew were on his back.  

"So why couldn't you have done that earlier?" He asked as he buttoned on the white collared shirt and rolled up his sleeves.

"Okay," Felicity said crossly. "It's not like TV; I can't just type in willy-nilly and turn it off; it takes time. Plus, they've updated their security system since the last time."

"Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. Oliver raked his hand through his hair, shaking his head to get rid of the sweat.

“Hold still Happy,” Sara said firmly from behind him.  Sara was sitting cross legged with Felicity’s head in her lap.  “I need to put this on you,” this being the prosthetic burn piece that would cover half her face.  

“Grab the makeup kit and start doing her chest and neck,” she ordered.  Oliver scowled at that as he bent down to get her kit and start working on her makeup.  

He wasn’t quite sure what to do, but he had references on his own body as to what burns should look like.  He tried to his best to match it, blending purples and oranges and yellows in swirls that he thought looked like burns.

“Guys?” Felicity said, her lips barely moving.  “We’re at the fifteenth floor.  I made it so that we have a thirty second delay at the lobby, but we need to move quicker.”

Sara stole the brushes from his hand.  “I’ll finish this.  Get the sling and the cast.”

He moved quickly, grabbing the items from Felicity’s oversized purse.  She lifted her arm silently and leaned forward for him to put it on; she extended her leg so that he could strap her leg into the cast.

“Three...two...one,” Felicity recited, her eyes on the descending numbers that were above the doors.

“Done,” Sara said as she stuffed the last of the makeup in the briefcase.  She helped Felicity up, and Oliver grabbed all of the bags.  

It took him a second to remember the role he had to play, but when he did, he instantly slumped his shoulders a bit lower, let the scowl on his face gentle a bit into a tired expression of an intern kept too long at the office.  

Sara, on the other hand, shifted so that she was standing at her fullest height, no matter how slight she was.  Felicity leaned on her, her legs shaky.

The door opened to a man holding a gun at them.  He was quick to holster it, but Oliver couldn’t help but feel tenser at the sight of it.

“Stop staring at my client,” Sara snapped.  

“It’s okay Joanne,” Felicity half-sobbed.  “I’m used to it; I mean look at me! No wonder my boyfriend kicked me out and-” she rambled on as they walked out of the lobby.  Oliver glared at the guard from the corner of his eye, as if to say, ‘ _stop stalling this; I want to go home already_.’

“I’m sorry ma’am,” the guard said.

“I should hope so,” Sara said loudly over the sound of Felicity’s chattering.  “Come on, Ron.  We have to get my client to her new home.”

They weren’t stopped as they walked out the front door.

“Good job,” Diggle said.  “Cross the street and turn left; I’m parked there.”

“Keep the charade up,” Oliver whispered out of the side of his mouth.  “At least until we’re out of sight.”

Sara and Felicity didn’t give any verbal indication, but Felicity’s sniffles softened as she limped the entire block.  

Oliver resisted the urge to snort when they turned the corner.  Diggle had acquired a minivan, like some kind of soccer mom.  The door slid open and the three of them piled in, Felicity reaching for her laptop the second she was in.

"Get me to the Starbucks on 2nd street; I can piggyback on their wifi to send this to Mr. Merlyn."

"Isn't it closed?" Diggle asked over his shoulder.

Felicia shot him a cool stare. "I was able to break into ARGUS twice; I think I can hack into a Starbucks' wifi."

Oliver smirked at that; he caught Sara doing the same and the smile vanished.

"Okay," Diggle says, amused . He turned a left at the light.

Felicity peered over the top of her laptop. "So did anyone think that this was..." She fished for a word. "Awesome? I mean I've never worked with a team, but this was fun!"

"This was a one time deal," Oliver pointed out.

"I don't work with anyone anymore," Sara said.

“And I have a job to save,” Felicity finished.  “I know that.  But just…” she trailed off.

“It was fun,” Sara said in what she thought was probably a comforting manner.

Diggle came to a stop in front of the Starbucks.  

“Using the apartment next door’s wifi and bouncing on a couple of different IP addresses,” Felicity muttered.  “Aaaaand- done!” She pumped her fist into the air- a move that Oliver suspected she was fond of.

“Do we walk home or?” she wondered.

The van’s door opened, and Sara left without a word.  

“We leave on our own from here,” Diggle said.  

“Actually, can you take me to my car? I’m parked like five minutes away from here.” Felicity asked.  

Oliver didn’t hear the answer; he’d exited the car by then.  He threw his hood up and walked the opposite direction from Sara.  The job was done- mostly well for the most part- and he could go back to his apartment and ignoring his sister’s texts.  At least, he figured, he wouldn’t have to see those three again.  

 


End file.
